Murphy's Law #8: Naomi Klein and Richard Murphy...

Turd Sandwich [left] and LRF Naomi Klein [right] (I thought that I had better label them, since Murphy looks and writes like some silly old woman and I thought that you might get confused).

... should marry and then throw themselves off a cliff in a suicide pact that would really benefit society. And what's brought this on, eh?

Well, Timmy quotes a review of Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine.

I managed to get through the first part of this load of tripe and was actually quite enjoying it until my wife told me it wasn’t satire.

It's actually a very lovely review—well-written, precisely argued and it most enjoyably rips Ms Klein a new arsehole—but I would like to highlight this bit in particular. [Emphasis mine.]

Finally, there is the central role that Klein imputes to her villain [Milton] Friedman, both in this one glorious passage and throughout her book. In her telling, he is the intellectual guru of the shock doctrine, whose minions have carried out his corporatist agenda from Santiago to Baghdad. Klein calls the neocon movement "Friedmanite to the core," and identifies the Iraq war as a "careful and faithful application of unrestrained Chicago School ideology" over which Friedman presided. What she does not mention--not once, not anywhere, in her book--is that Friedman argued against the Iraq war from the beginning, calling it an act of "aggression."

It ought to be morbidly embarrassing for a writer to discover that the central character of her narrative turns out to oppose what she identifies as the apotheosis of his own movement. And Klein's mistake exposes the deeper flaw of her thesis. Friedman opposed the war because he was a libertarian, and libertarian conservatism is not the same thing as neoconservatism. Nor are the interests of corporations always, or even usually, served by war.

Quite. Does Ms Klein's fundamental misunderstanding (or wilful ignorance) of libertarian philosophy remind you of anyone? A pusillanimous, sanctimonious, Socialist cunt of a tax adviser perhaps?

He moved out of the political mainstream and into the Neo-Con, libertarian hinterlands.

Of course, when challenged on this issue (not least by myself), Richard "what a cunt" Murphy was dismissive. Apart from the bit wherein he equates libertarians with racist neo-Nazis, of course. [Emphasis mine.]

I note that the Far Right blog community are very upset with me tonight and are visiting this site in droves.

The want to defend their friends in the Tax Payer’s Alliance, about whom I have written.

We all—including Richard "turd sandwich" Murphy—know the connotations of the phrase "Far Right"; libertarians are not racist neo-Nazis and nor are the Taxpayer's Alliance. If anyone gave a crap about Turd Sandwich, one might say that that comment was, in fact, actionable.

It seems they’re incredibly upset that I lumped some of them (the libertarians) with the Neo-Cons. The anguish is loud and long! How could I do such a thing?

Ignorance? Stupidity?

The answer is simple. I care as little about the difference between these groups as I do about the difference between the Socialist Worker’s Party and the Socialist Party of Great Britain.

Not really, Richard; there are a load pretty fucking massive differences between the corporatist, racist Nazis, the expansionist neo-Conservatives, the smaller state, broadly conservative TPA and radical minarchist libertarians governed by a rule of non-aggression that forms one of the most crucial cornerstones of libertarianism philosophy.

Put simply, the far Right, the Tax Payer’s Alliance and the far Left are all irrelevant to the needs of the people of this country.

Of course, Richard. Only you know what the needs of the people of this country are, eh? Let's see what your qualifications are for stating that, shall we?

Unlike the TPA, the TJN works in the real world. We talk to real politicians, from the Conservatives, Lib Dems and across the Labour perspective. We do not deal outside the limits of credibility.

I'm so glad that you talk to real politicians, Richard, rather than those fake ones. But how you conclude that talking to politicians allows you to say that your organisation "works in the real world" and that you "do not deal outside the limits of credibility" is beyond me. If there is one bunch of arseholes in this country which does not work "in the real world", it is that of politicians.

The real world experience of politicians is confined to working out by how much they are going to have to raise taxes this year and then ensuring that the rise in their salaries and unscrutinised expenses is considerably more than that amount (plus inflation).

So, Naomi Klein and Turd Sandwich: an ideological match made in hell. So, let them get together, make sweet, Socialist lurve just the once, and then throw themselves off Beachy Head so that they may burn in Hell for evermore.

What a couple of cunts they are...


P.S. And now, for your delectation, here's some more Turd Sandwich from The Kitchen archives...

PREVIOUS INSTALLMENTS OF MURPHY'S LAW

1. Murphy's Law #1


2. Murphy's Law #2


3. Murphy's Law #3


4. Murphy's Law #4


5. Murphy's Law #5


6. Murphy's Law #6


7. Murphy's Law #7

Richard Murphy: what a genius! What a shitehawk! What an utter, utter cunt...